How to Practice Consciousness and Free Yourself from the Ego to Help You Heal in Your Divorce or Breakup
Before one can proceed to practice consciousness in their life, one must first acknowledge the existence of its opposite, the unconscious or the egoic mind, and learn to free the true self from it.
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According to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, each and every one of us, in essence, are beings of unconditioned awareness, inner presence, and formless. Inside of us, there is an “I” who is unconscious and an “I” who is conscious but inactive.
By default, we are all unconscious and controlled by the unconscious mind or the ego. It is the one responsible for feeding us false and superficial representations of our selves. In all our dealings as humans, it conditions our primordial “I” to identify with our thoughts and emotions including our past and future and base all our acts and decisions from them.
“Ego is identification with form, primarily thought forms.” Eckhart Tolle wrote. All our thoughts and feelings such as sadness, anger, desire, jealousy, fear, depression, and others, including our physical possessions, experiences, memories, and social and legal relationships, are forms that the unconscious mind attaches to the primordial “I” creating a superficial construct of the self-based therefrom. The ego needs to identify with the forms to survive and fortify the superficial self it has created.
But since everything is naturally fleeting and impermanent, the ego is always looking for a physical or mental thing to attach itself to. It won’t stay still, it won’t be silenced. That is why during a life challenging event or when problems arise, we tend to incessantly ruminate on issues, recall the past, and fear the future, causing us to lose sleep, become irritable, and to base our decisions and actions on raw impulses and compulsions, trapping us in a loop of bad choices, and making our sufferings worse.
Opposite to the ego is our conscious mind floating a formless dimension inside of us. It is present inside of us but is silenced and overshadowed by the unconscious. The conscious mind recognizes that You are the truth, a formless awareness, timeless, and present, who is aware of the noisy voice inside Your head. It knows and understands that Your reactions, action, experiences, values, beliefs, and emotions that You identify Yourself with are all products of the ego. The conscious mind recognizes them, understands, and accepts them as they are in the present moment detached from your Being.
As a result, You remain unaffected, conscious, kind, and mindful of Your experiences, relations with others, hardships, and challenges You face. You become well equipped to intelligently process them and use them to move on, heal, improve the true self, and achieve true happiness and peace.
Ego is an important stage in the evolution of our consciousness. However, for our consciousness to evolve and transcend as the awakened and enlightened conscious mind, we need to acknowledge the ego and learn to silence and manage it.
To practice consciousness, we need to be in the NOW — being in those little peaceful spaces in between Your thoughts. Eckhart says that to reach this state, You have to “sense this essence within Yourself, this aware presence. Then You step beyond ego within Yourself. It’s only then when You can look beyond a human being and look beyond their external appearance of that human being and sense also all their innermost presence.”
Here are some ways for You to be and stay in the present, to access and help You find freedom from Your ego.
1. Understand further the principle of consciousness.
Read the book by Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, and the Power of Now to expand Your knowledge of Your consciousness, Your being, and true Self. Understanding the concept may be confusing but the books provide practical and simple examples that You can relate to Your own life. He also speaks of gateways to accessing the NOW to practice consciousness and overpower the ego.
2. Practice consciousness by observing Your thoughts and practice mindfulness by being part of Your thoughts consciously.
Consciousness is the ability to observe Your thoughts and emotions in the shoes of an unbiased observer while mindfulness is actively assessing the happenings within you consciously. There are many techniques to reach the state of being mindful one of which is to pay attention to Your breathing. Think of the details in the process of Your breathing, from inhaling to exhaling, and how our body responds to it. Once You do this, You will feel the “shift” from Your unconscious mind to Your conscious mind that is observing in the small space of stillness located in between Your thoughts. When You reach it, you can feel the silence and inner peace. The more You practice consciousness, the larger the space of stillness becomes.
3. Meditate.
Train Your mind to be aware every day. Hone it as a skill. Hence, scheduling a time in Your day to meditate is highly recommended.
4. Observe other people.
This exercise allows You to see other human beings with compassion rather than with labels. You can do this by going to a mall or in a park. Devoid Yourself of distractions such as Your phone or a book. Find a quiet place to sit and observe people pass by. Just observe. Then, in a piece of paper, Describe them as You see them in plain sight. You can write Your observations specifically the way You see them, the color, the shape, the size, the actions of people, or what they are doing. Be very objective. Be aware to not associate them with social constructs based merely on their appearance. Notice only the things in the present. When You do this, You will feel compassion towards them as You see them simply as breathing and feeling human beings, who like You, have hopes, dreams, challenges, fears, and other things that You also experience as a human.
When You practice consciousness in Your everyday life, notice how Your world view changes. You will be freed from the shackles of Your ego and You will view happiness and peace of mind as not just mere unattainable concepts but a dream that you can achieve.
